Jerry Seib: Republicans and Risk Corridors

2/5/2014 6:00AM

Republicans have warned that the so-called 'Risk Corridors' in the Affordable Care Act will serve as bailouts for the insurance companies. However, a recent Congressional Budget Office report states that it is the government rather than the insurance companies that may be receiving money.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

the ... here are two words you're going to hear a lot more in the next few days rest core dollars what a risk or doors ... they're part of the Affordable Care Act also known as Obamacare ... and that refers to a provision in the law that says essentially that if insurance companies are losing a lot of money because they had to take on a lot of unhealthy people under the Obamacare provisions the government to refund them some of their money if it's costing them more than they in the government estimated ... to provide insurance to everybody ... this has to get a refund from the government the Republicans have been very unhappy with this first-quarter provision ... had been calling it essentially a bailout of the insurance industry ... and there's been some talk of changing the law to eliminated perhaps making that change ... a requirement before Republicans will agree to raise the that the national debt ceiling ... in the next few weeks ... but then ... on Tuesday an interesting thing happen the Congressional Budget Office nonpartisan ... steady grip on the hill put out a report ... into the public and the Congress that said assessing the effect of the first quarter will be the opposite the government is likely to actually make money from the risk orders because ... if insurance companies are doing better than they and that the government estimated ... they returned money to the federal government CBO said the risk orders will actually produce ... eight billion dollars in profit for the federal government ... so be interesting see in the next few days what this does the rest quarter argument ... and whether this ands or simply changes the Republican effort for trade those provisions ... as to ...